Excessive Texting Leads To “Blackberry Thumb” Injury

by Gaurav Kheterpal on August 30, 2010

No matter how fast or how slow you text, excessive texting is not good for your thumb. A case in point is the recent “BlackBerry Thumb” injury to a mortgage banker in Philadelphia who spends 12 hours a day texting clients on her iPhone.

Known as the “BlackBerry Thumb“, the injury is now becoming increasingly common amongst iPhone users as well and may even require surgery to get tendons removed from the user’s hand. Pain, inflammation and numbness are most common symptoms of “iPhone Thumb”, the iPhone variant of “Blackberry Thumb”.

And experts still call texting a “Lightweight” technology?

While it’s relatively common to hear about people getting “psyched out” due to excessive calling on cellphones, this is perhaps the first case of being “texted out”. She had to undergo surgery to remove the tendons and is likely to take around two months to fully recover from the injury. Constant texting is not good for your hands and your thumb in particular.

The woman’s name has not been revealed for obvious reasons to avoid her further embarrassment of being a “texting addict”. SMS is a popular communication medium amongst the youth, be it the usual chit-chat, keeping in touch with their friends or sexting. Though it is used heavily in certain business segments such as banking, trading, and real estate, it’s no where close to the ubiquitous presence of email. Texting isn’t as convenient as email as it’s far easier to use a computer keyboard than a miniature QWERTY or an on-screen keyboard.

“Most hand tendon injuries take longer to recover than most other operations elsewhere in the body. The entire process can be very stressful. Two months after tendon surgery is the usual time that many people run out of steam, lose faith and get depressed about their recovery – this is normal. If you feel that this event has triggered a clinical depression, get professional help for this – it will help your recovery, not to mention your emotional well being, and you still may have a way to go – final plateau of recovery may take about a year. Don’t let your finger take over your life – you will eventually find that you will be able to do much more with your hand than you currently think possible, despite the changes brought on by the injury.”

Excess of anything is bad. Too much texting on your BlackBerry or iPhone can lead to a “Thumbs down” situation so you better know your limits.

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